Drinking from the waters of lethe and offering herself up as Faerie’s sacrificial Tithe . . . these just might be the least of Abby Sinclair’s problems.
Abby’s pact with a daemon—whether or not she remembers making it—is binding, so she’d better count herself lucky that (in the words of a daemon who knows better) there’s nearly always a loophole. But her friends’ reckless attempts to free her, well intentioned though they may be, set off a disastrous chain of events. In no time at all, Abby turns her incubus lover mortal, then gets herself killed, cursed, and married to an elven prince whose mother wants her dead. On top of everything else, she’s lost the Key to the CrossRoads to her mortal enemy, who promptly uses his restored power to wreak havoc on the OtherWorld and put its very existence in jeopardy. Only one person can make things right again, but to find her, Abby must place her trust in allies of mixed loyalties, and conquer her nightmares once and for all.

I’ve put off this review forever, because it makes me feel like a jerk. I like Allison Pang (met her in NOLA, albeit briefly, and she was cool beans), I like how she writes dialogue giving Abby Sinclair all sorts of awesome one-liners and nerdy cultural references, I liked the whole love triangle thing between Ion and Talivar, and Phin, who doesn’t love a snarky, horndog of a unicorn, but I did not like Trace of Moonlight.

Honestly, it makes me sad because I such high hopes for this book, but it just didn’t do it for me. Pang is still great with the dialogue, Abby’s Lord of The Rings comments are hilarious and help bring levity to some dark moments, and the characters I’ve grown to love are still there and still awesome, but the plot killed me.

Right from the opening of Trace of Moonlight I felt lost in the plot and that feeling lasted right up until, what I thought was, the book’s ambiguous and anti-climactic ending. I’ve been following this series since it came out so I was surprised and disappointed that I had such a hard time following events and all of the plot twists and turns. To me, it just felt like too much was going on. I don’t know if this is because it was the last book of the series and all sorts of loose ends needed to be tied or what, but it kind of took the enjoyment out of the book for me.

That’s all I’ve got.

If you haven’t read this series, please don’t not pick it up because of this review. I loved A Brush of Darkness and A Sliver of Shadow and totally recommend them to any and everyone, but do not attempt to read Trace of Moonlight without having read the previous two or you’ll be inexplicably lost.

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EmiliaOctober 30, 2012 at 1:56 pm

I liked the frist 2 books and am worried about this one as I had some issues with the second book. I read some of the early reviews and they didn’t make me rush out to get this one. I will read it but not right away. Thanks for your review.